Part 2

The adventure of that midnight hour dated the beginning of a change on George Gourlay. One might have said of him, with the older playwright who never pictured a ghost, _quod scis nescis_; for then never a word scarcely would he speak to man or beast, nay, not even to a woman, who has a power of breaking the charm of that silence in others of which their sex are themselves incapable--even, we say, wife Christian. There are many Trophonian caves in the world about us, only known to ourselves, out of which, when we come, we are mute, because we have seen something different from the objects of the sunlight; yea, if, as the Indians say, the animals are the dumb of earth, these are the dumb of heaven. Certain at least it is, that while Geordie did not hesitate before that night to use his voice in asking an extravagant price for an old lock, or even damning him who below made more noise than nails, he never now used that tongue in such dishonesties and irreverences. But, what was even more strange, wife Christian did not seem to have any inclination to break his silent mood; nay, if he was moody, so was she. Then her eyelight was so changed to him, that he could not thereby, as formerly, read her thoughts. Perhaps she took all this on from imitation; but she was not one of the imitative children of genius--rather a hard-grained Cameronian, to whom others' thoughts are only as a snare; yet, might she not have had suspicions of her husband's silence? All facts were against such a supposition, except one: that, on the following morning, she observed dryly, that the dip she had left in the kitchen had burnt away of its own special accord. Vain thoughts all. Geordie was simply "born again;" and old women do not speak to infants, until, at least, they can hear.

Nor did this mood promise amendment even up to that night, when a rap having come to the door, Geordie started, while guidwife Christian went undismayed to open the same; for, moody as she was, she was not affected by evening raps as he was, and had been since that eventful midnight. But if the sturdy blacksmith was afraid before she obeyed the call, he was greatly more so after she had opened the door, and when she led into the parlour an old man, with hair more than usually grey even for his years, with a staff in his hand, bearing up, as he came in, a tall, wasted body--so wasted, that he might have been supposed to have waited all this time for a leg of that goose which had been so very long at the fire. The grief of years had eaten up his face, and only left untouched the corrugations itself had made. Yet withal he was a gentleman; for his bow to Geordie was just that which the grandees of the Wynd made to each other as they passed and repassed. No sooner was he seated, holding his cane between his shrivelled legs, and his sharp grey eye fixed on the blacksmith, than the latter became as one enchanted for a second time, with all the horrors of the first catalepsy upon him, by the process of the double sense insisted for by Abercromby, but thus known in Bell's Wynd before his day. Yes, Geordie was entranced again, nor less guidwife Christian--both staring at the stranger, as if their minds had gone back through long bygone years to catch the features of a prototype for comparison with that long, withered face, so yellow and grave-like; then Christian looked stealthily, and concealed her face.

"You are a blacksmith, Mr. Gourlay?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long have you been here in Bell's Wynd?"

"Nine years, come Beltane Feast."

"Not so much as the half of twenty," said the stranger, more inwards than outwards.

"Twenty!" ejaculated Christian, as if she could not just help herself.

And Geordie searched her rigid face for a stray sympathy, repeating within the teeth that very same word--"Twenty."

"Then," continued the old man, "you cannot tell who occupied the flat below at that long period back?"

"No."

"And who occupies it now?"

Geordie was as dumb as the white figure, or as the head on the pillow with the rat-brown mutch; and this time Christian answered for him:

"It hasna been occupied for twenty years, sir; and it has been shut up a' that lang time."

"Twenty years!" ejaculated the old man, pondering deeply, and sighing heavily and painfully.

"Do any of you know Mr. Thomas Dallas, the Clerk to the Signet, who lived once in Lady Stair's Close?"

"Dead eighteen years since," replied the wife.

"Ah, I see," rejoined the stranger; "and so the house has been thus long closed!" Then musingly, "But then it will be empty--no furniture, nothing but bare walls."

"Naebody kens," replied George, still busy examining the face of the questioner, as if he could not get it to be steady alongside the image in his own mind.

"You can, of course, open a padlock?"

"Ou ay, when it's no owre auld, and the brass slide has been well kept on the key-hole." Then, as if recollecting himself, "I hinna tried an auld ane for years."

"One twenty years unopened?" rejoined the stranger.

Geordie was again dumb and rigid.

"Indeed, sir," replied Christian, who saw that her husband was under some strong feeling, "he can pick ony lock."

"The very man," said the mysterious visitor. "And now, madam, will you allow me to take the liberty of requesting to be for a few moments the only one present in this room with your husband, as I have some business of a very secret nature to transact with him, which it would not be proper for a woman, even of your evident discretion and confidence, to be acquainted with?"

"I dinna want ye to gang," whispered George.

"And what for no?" muttered she. "Let evil-doers dree the shame o' their deeds. Didna ye say to me ye were an honest man, ay, even as cauld iron or steel, and what ought ye to hae to fear? And now, sir," turning round, "I will e'en tak me to the kitchen, that what ye want wi' George Gourlay you may do in secret, even as he has been secret wi' me."

Then guidwife Christian went out, casting, as she went, a look of something like triumph at her husband.

"And now, George Gourlay," said the stranger, "the secret thing I have to transact with you, and for which I have come three thousand miles, is to ask you to go with me this night and open the padlock of the door of that house below, which has not been opened for twenty years."

"I winna, I canna, I daurna, sir. Gang to the Dean o' Guild. There's a dead body in the green bed, and there's a spirit in a lang white goun that watches it."

The hand of the stranger shook, as he grasped spasmodically his staff; his teeth for a moment were clenched; and he plainly showed a resolution not to seem moved by that which as clearly did move him to the innermost parts of his being. Nor did it now escape Gourlay, as he sat and gazed at him, that he was the original of that picture in the dining-room, which hung by the side of the beautiful lady.

"Then you must have been in?"

Geordie was silent, meditating on some new light gradually breaking in upon him.

"You must have been in, and--and--know the secret?"

"I ken nae secret, except it be that the goose which has been at the fire for twenty years is no roasted yet."

"That goose at the fire even yet!" ejaculated the stranger.

"Ay, and the thread still on the pirn."

"Pirn!" responded he mechanically.

"Ay, and the bottle standing on the dresser along by the pewter mug."

"Mug!"

"Ay, and the half-cut loaf on the oaken table, with alongside o't the knife."

"Knife!"

"Ay, and to cap a', the green bed with the dark red counterpane, and in it still the corpse."

"Corpse!"

"So, so," continued the stranger, "I have been wandering the wide world for twenty years to escape from myself, as if a man could leave his shadow in the east when he has gone to the west, and all that time found the vanity of a forced forgetfulness where the touch of God's finger still burned in the heart. Ay, nor long prairies, nor savannahs where objects are cast behind and not seen, nor thick woods which exclude the sun, nor rocky caves by the sea-shore, where there is only heard the roaring of the waves, could untwine the dark soul from its recollections. But other things of earth and human workmanship rot and pass away, as if all were vanity, but man's spirit; and yet here it has been decreed by Heaven, and wrought by miracle, that things of flesh, and bone, and wood, and dried grass should be enchanted for duration, yea, kept in the very place, and form, and lineaments they possessed in a terrible hour, the memory of which they must conserve for a purpose. Speak man: Have those sights and things taught you aught of a purpose? Why look ye at me as if you saw into my heart, and grin as if you were gifted with the right of revenge? What thoughts have you--what wishes? What do you premeditate?"

"Just nae mair than that you'll no get me to enter that house again."

The stranger's head was bent down in heavy sorrow; and, after being silent for a while, he rose, and bidding Gourlay good night, went away, saying he would get another locksmith. The strange manner of Christian was now made even more remarkable, as, taking her bonnet and cloak, she sallied forth, late as the hour was, proceeding up the Wynd, and muttering as she went, "The very man, the very man," she made direct for Blackfriars Wynd, where she stopt, and looked up to a small window on the right hand. There was light in it; and ascending a narrow stair she reached a door, which she quietly opened. A woman was there, busily spinning. The birr ceased as the door opened.

"Ann Hall," cried Christian, as she entered, "he is come, he is come! I kent his face the moment I saw it."

"Patience, patience, Christian," replied the woman, "what are you to do?"

"There maun be nae patience, when God says haste."

"Canny, canny. The wa's are thin and ears are gleg. I can hear a whisper frae the next room. Now, I'll spin and you'll speak."

And so she began to produce the dirl by turning the wheel and plying the thread.

"What although ye hae seen him? that maks nae difference. Your aith is still afore the Lord; and though we are forbidden to swear, when we hae sworn we hae nae right to brak that aith, as if it were a silly wand, to be broken and cast awa' at the end o' our journey. And then ye maun keep in mind, if you brak your word, ye stretch his neck."

"I carena," replied Christian. "The Lord maun hae His ain for reward, and Satan maun hae his ain, too, for punishment. Sin' ever that eery night when in my night-shirt I followed George into the house, and saw what I saw, the Spirit o' the Lord has been busy in my heart; and my aith has been to me nae mair than a windlestrae in the east wind, to be blawn awa' where it listeth. Ye are, like mysel', o' the Auld Light, and ken what it is to hae the finger o' command laid upon ye."

"We maun obey; but we maun ken whether the finger is for the will o' the auld rebel o' pride, wha rebelled in heaven, or Him wha says to the murderer, Get ye among the rocks or caves o' secrecy, and I will search ye out, and rug ye into the licht."

"And what for should I no ken whase finger it is?" said wife Christian. "Have I no seen what I have seen? For what are a' thae things keepit, as man keeps the apple o' his e'e? Is na the rust and the worm, ay, and Time's teeth, aye eating, and gnawing, and tearing, so that everything passes awa' to make room for others, as if the hail warld were a whirligig turning round like your ain wheel there for ever and ever?"

"Ay, the Lord's hand, na doubt. The deil doesna keep the instruments and signs o' his evil, but shuffles them awa' in nooks and corners to be out o' the een o' his victims."

"But hae I no laid my very hand on the fleshless head o' the bonny misguided creature? Wae tak the man wha brought sae muckle beauty to the earth to rot, and yet hae nae grave to cover it!"

"Weel mind I o' her," said Ann, as she still made the wheel go round. "How she sailed up the Wynd wi' her load o' silks and satins, and the ribbons that waved in the wind, as if to say, Look here; saw ye ever the like among the daughters o' men?"

"It was left to testify, woman, naething else; but the glimmer o' Geordie's candle showed me a' the lave. Ay, the very goose I plucked, and drew, and singed, and put on the spit--what for is it there, think ye, cummer, but to testify? and the pewter jug I drank out o' that forenoon, and my ain bed I hadna time to mak--what for but to testify?"

"And punish. But oh, woman, he had sair provocations. Wha was that goose for?"

"For her lover, nae doubt; for my master wasna expected hame for a week. And was I no guilty mysel', wha played into her hands, and was fause to him wha fed me?"

"Haud your peace, then, and say naething. The Lord will forgi'e you."

"Oh God, hae mercy on me, a sinner; and tak awa' frae me this transgression, that I may lift up my voice in the tabernacle without fear or trembling!"

The wheel turned with greater celerity and more noise, and wife Christian was on her knees, beating her bosom and crying for mercy.

"Say nae mair, woman," cried the spinner, "and do nae mair. Let the corpse lie in the green bed, and a' thing be in the wud-dream o' that dreary house; do nae mair."

"But the Lord drives me."

"Just sae; and he wham you would hang on the wuddy will stand up against ye, and swear ye were the cause o' the death o' his braw leddie, for that ye concealed her trothlessness, and winked at her wickedness."

"Haud your tongue, cummer," cried the Old Light Sinner; "haud your tongue, or you'll drive me mad. Is my heart no like aneugh to brak its strings, but ye maun tug at them? Is my brain no het aneugh, but ye maun set lowe to it, and burn it? And my conscience, ken ye na what it is to hae that terrible thing within ye, when it's waukened up like a fiend o' hell, chasing ye wi' a red-het brand, and nae escape, for the angel o' the Lord hauds ye agen? Ann Hall, my auldest friend, will ye do this thing for me?"

"What is it?"

"Gang to Mr B----, the fiscal, and tell him that the corpse is there, and that the man is here, and say naething o' me; do this, or I'll never haud up my hands again for grace and mercy."

Ann was silent, only driving the wheel, the sound of which in the silent house--dark enough, too, in the small light of the oil cruise over the fireplace--was all that was heard, save the occasional sobs of the unhappy victim of conscience.

"I canna, Christian; I canna, lass. I'll hang nae man for the death o' a light-o'-love limmer, and to save the conscience o' ane wha, if she didna see something wrang when it _was_ wrang, ought to hae seen it."

"I repent and am sair in the spirit," replied Christian; "but if I had tauld him what I suspected was wrang between Spynie--and ye ken he was a lord, and titles cast glamour ower the een o' maidens--and my mistress, it would hae been a' the same. But wae's me!" she added, as she sighed from the depths of the heart, and wrung her hands, "I had a lichtness about me myself. A woman's no in her ain keeping at wild happy nineteen. The heart is aye jumping against the head. But oh, how changed when the Auld Licht shone ower me! And hae I no been a guid wife to Geordie Gourlay? Will you no help me, woman?"

"I hae said it," replied Mrs Hall, as the energy of her resolution passed into the moving power of the wheel, and the revolutions became quicker and quicker.

The Cameronian stood for a moment looking at her--the lips compressed, the brow knit, the hand firmly bound up, and striking it upon the wall.

"Ye're o' my faith," said she bitterly; "and may the Evil One help ye when ye're in need o' the Lord!"

And with these words she left her old friend, drawing the door after her with a clang, which shook the crazy tenement. In a moment she was in the street, now beginning to be deserted. The wooden-pillared lamps, so thinly distributed, and their small dreary spunk of life, showed only the darkness they were perhaps intended to illumine; and here and there was seen a gay-dressed sprig of aristocracy, with his gold-headed cane, cocked hat, and braided vest, strolling unsteadily home, after having drunk his couple of claret. Solitary city guardsmen were lounging about, as if waiting for the peace being broken, when an encounter occurred between some such ornamented braggadocio and a low Wynd blackguard--ready to use his quarter-staff against the silver-handled sword of the aristocrat; and here and there the high-pattened, short-gowned light-o'-love, regardless of the loud-screamed "gardy-loo," frolicked with "gold lace and wine," or swore the Edinburgh oaths at untrue and discarded lovers of their own degree. But guidwife Christian saw none of all these things; only one engrossing vision was in her mind, that of the sleeping scene of enchantment in the old flat, associated with the figure of the stranger;--one feeling only was paramount in her heart, the inspired awe of the conviction that these petrified relics of another time, so long back, were there waiting for her to touch them, that they should be disenchanted, and speak and tell their tale, and then rot and depart, according to the usual law of change, and corruption, and decay.

In this mood she got to the top of the Wynd, and was hurrying along the first or covered portion, overspread by the front lands, and therefore dark, when she encountered a man rolled up in a cloak. Even in the dim light coming from the street lamp on the main pavement, she recognised him in a moment. He was slouching down by the side of the wall, and did not seem to notice her. So Christian held back, until he had got farther on. She felt herself concentrated upon his movements, and observed that he hung about her own stair, standing in the middle of the close, with his eye fixed on the dark windows of the deserted flat. There was no meaning in his action. It seemed simply that his eye was bound to that house. So far Christian understood the ways of the world; but there are deeper mysteries there than she wotted of or dreamed just then. A man will examine a gangrene if it is hopeful; and will hope, and shrink, and be alarmed, when the hope fails only but a little; nay, he will dread the undoing of the bandages, lest the hope of the prior undoing should be changed by the new aspect into a conviction of aggravation; but there is a state of that ailment, as of moral ills, where all hope having vanished, despair comes to be reconciled to its own terrors, and the eye will peer into the hopeless thing, ay, and be charmed with it, and dally with it, as an irremediable condition, which is his own peculium, a part of his nature, so far changed. He then becomes a lover of pity, as before he was a seeker for hope; and, like a desperate bankrupt, will hawk the balance-sheet of his ills, to make up for the subtraction from his credit by the sympathy of the world. So did that man look upon that house, a hopeless sore, after twenty years pain and agony, with these green spots, and the caustic-defying "proud flesh." Was not the fleshless corpse of his dead wife still there? She was a skeleton; but he could only fancy her as he had seen her twenty years before, a young and beautiful woman. Nor was he alarmed as Christian, weary of waiting but not unsteeled now for a recognition, stept forward and confronted him.

"Mrs. Gourlay!" he said, as he peered into her hard face.

"Ay, guidwife Christian, as my husband says. Christian Gourlay that is--Christian Dempster that was."

"Dempster!" ejaculated he, as he staggered and sustained himself against the side of the close.

"Yes, sir--Patrick Guthrie that was when I was Dempster, and is--ay, and will be till you are born again, and baptized with fire."

"Patrick Guthrie!" he repeated. "Yes, the man, the very man. And here, too, is the evidence kept and preserved, perhaps more than once snatched from death, to be here at this hour to see me, and lay your hand on me, and be certain that I am the man, the very man. And," after a pause, "you have kept your sworn promise?"

"Till this day. Look up there, and see thae closed shutters; go in, and behold, and say whether or not."

"Too faithful!" groaned he.

"To an aith wrung out o' me by a money-bribe and terror."

"And to be repaid by a money-reward and penitence."

"The ane, sir, but never the other. Another day--another day," she repeated, "will try a'."

"What mean you, Christian?"

"Mean I? Why are you here?"

"Because I am weary wandering over the face of the earth, an exile and a criminal, for twenty long--oh long years!"

"And now want rest and peace! And how can ye get them but through the fire of the law, and the waters of the gospel? Where are you living?"

"Why should I conceal from you, Christian?" said he, thoughtfully. "No--at the White Horse in the Canongate, under the name of Douglas."

"_Her_ name! Then look ye to it; for there will be human voices where none have been for twenty years, and cries o' wonder, and tears o' pity. Yes, yes, the long sleep is ended, for the charm is broken. Good night."